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<JZA> ok let's get going.. 
<JZA> so basically this will be an informational meeting, after we can ask questions, propose and so forth. We just going to let everyone know what we have been up to this past 2 months.
<JZA> And what do we have on schedule.
<JZA> during January primarily we have been working with Ian from INGOTs on trying to apply for a budget that will allow us to fund our operations. We are aware that so far we have been operating with cero budget however we have been able to do a couple of things. 
<JZA> One was structuring the OOoES to the QCF (Qualification Credit Framework).
<JZA> this is a somewhat standarized framework of assesing skill-based qualifications in the European Union. 
<JZA> We choose it because is vendor neutral and address through skill modules the way they see the qualifications.  Here is a link to the QCF for more information: http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/51.aspx
<JZA> we are also seen that if it's standard in the UK many countries outside of Europe might be keen to adopt it including countries like South Africa, south east asia and others. These model their educational system based on the UK system.
<JZA> So what we have been doing thanks to Evan request has been cross matching our syllabus with the QCF modules and we have come with some kind of mapping of the items.
<jimby> question- what is OOoES?
<JZA> sorry, a type, I mean "OOo Syllabus"
<jimby> k, thx
<JZA> you can see the work here: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Certification#Module_2_-_Writer_.28text_editing.29
<JZA> we have a syllabus and the third link is the objectives
<JZA> Module detail - Syllabus to Objective  match
<JZA> the works is not yet over so additional help would be appreciated ggurley 
<ggurley> ok
<JZA> as you can see on this match http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Certification/2_Match
<JZA> we have the QCF modules (Competence) with the syllabus Items (OOo Equiv)
<JZA> Writer is a little bit more done, we still need to transfer the work from Calc (originally in an Google doc)
<JZA> and we need to do the same for Impress and Draw
<JZA> so this is as far as "tasks" has been worked on.
<JZA> Ian has also been working with the fund and have been getting European sponsors to join as a requirement of the EU fund.
<JZA> so far there are seven of them and it seems is going on schedule. The submition of the papers will be done on Feb. 26 after that we might expect an answer by June.
<JZA> if all goes well we will be receiving that funding in October. 
<JZA> hopefully in time for OOoCon 2010
<JZA> Any questions up to now?
<jimby> so, your goal is to create a certification around the QCF framework with the Ofqual office, is that right?
<JZA> yes we are taking the QCF scheme and modeling our certification, however we have no current relationship with Ofqual 
<JZA> we are just using their modules as a reference.
<jimby> ok, understood
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<JZA> this will allow us to have a more standarized presentation of our certification and save us time trying to come with one of our own.
<JZA> hi evan
<el56> hi. sorry i'm late/
<JZA> welcome.
<el56> hi dru
<dlavigne> hi el56
<jimby> hi el56
<JZA> so just to get you on track, we have been rounding up on the QCF, the Syllabus match and the status of the funding. 
<JZA> and just informed what has been our activities so far, we are now asking if there is any questions right now regarding those topics.
<jimby> question-
<jimby> is your focus for your certification mostly EMEA?
<jimby> i.e - europe, africa, middle east, asia? 
<el56> Not really.
<el56> The objectives to be taught/tested are meant to be universal to OOo and adaptable to any language and culture.
<jimby> ok, understood
<el56> The testing methodology is being left flexible to acommodate local norms,
<el56> The reason for the current European emphasis -- based on the QCF and EU work going on -- is because that is one of the prime short-term funding potentials.
<jimby> ah- ok. good to know
<el56> The origin / reborth of this project actually happened in Mexico
<jimby> QCF looks similar to accreditation organizations here in the US
<el56> At a higher level, some years back I was able to get LPI certified by NOCA (www.noca.org), a body that certifies certification bodies. 
<el56> It wasn't easy and this effort won't need it.
<jimby> is QCF recognition/accreditation a prerequisite  for European Union recognition? 
<el56> @JZA: Didn't Ian suggest that?
<JZA> el56: yes he suggest that in order to make the proposal for the EU stronger. 
<jimby> ok- understood
* jimby has no more questions
<JZA> great, so I think this is what we have up to now, the next part of the meeting is to put some of the ideas of activities we might be doing on the following months. 
<JZA> One of the things that have been happening recently is that some universities and organizations have been coming to us in order to offer help.
<el56> One of the things I've started to think about are the non-testing issues -- promotion, partner building, etc.
<JZA> This is great, and something we want to capitalize, so one of the things we are working on is on having some kind of general ToDo and goals to work upon. Given the fact we still without a formal budget.
<el56> This will become quite the challenge on its own; making sure that the OOo cert has visibility.
<JZA> having organizations "testing" the certification will clearly help us having a more substantial and efficient project. 
<jimby> JZA: are you pursuing a psychometric approach to your certification?  will you be engaging a psychometrician to work with your process?
<JZA> another big todo is measuring the demand, having universities help us having some kind of study about how much demand can we expect would allow us to make better decisions on where we can start deploying the certification to maximize the return.
<el56> yes. having some idea of demand will also make a better selling case to funders.
<JZA> jimby: there was a talk about that, actually el56 has people in Brazil that could help us with that. But is a very intensive work and we need money for that. 
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<JZA> el56: am I correct on that?
<el56> Not quite.
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<JZA> ok
<el56> The nature of the way we will be testing will be extremely difficult to apply psychometrics.
<jimby> sorry
<dlavigne> el56: why will psych be difficult?
<el56> Psychometrics works extremely well to verify the utility of form-based tests (fill in the blanks, multiple choice, etc.)
<el56> The main testing methodology of OOo (well, what we have been working in so far) is hands-on testing.
<dlavigne> well, we'll find out this year with our hands on exam
<dlavigne> we will be doing psych for that this year
<el56> It is almost impossible to apply psychometrics properly to hands-on, Red Hat tried for years to apply psychometrics to RHCE but failed.
<jimby> we're looking at doing something similar- a hands-on lab that would be administered
<el56> Now they just use other evidence to indicate that psychometrics are not relevant to their tests.
<jimby> interesting... but seems to be going in the wrong direction :-)
<jimby> we (well, "I") think we have some ideas that might work
<el56> Red Hat, Cisco and others who engage in hand-on tests even created a marketing group to promote the benefits of hands-on and the irrelevance of psychopmetrics.
<JZA> the thing is that the predominant way the certification is builted is for everyone to have their own testing methodology which means psicometry should be apply to each way of doing things.
<el56> http://www.performancetest.org/
<jimby> we'll check that out
<jimby> so, back to OO- what kind of overall effort is needed for certification? - passing a test / module?
<el56> Right now the model is that we'd certifiy various bodies (user groups, training orgs, etc) as testers.
<JZA> well once we have the objectives clearly defined we need to document it and then get the testers to start implementing this. 
<el56> They would have the responsibility to ensure that students have met the objectives (the method for actually doing that could vary from partner to partner)
<jimby> k
<JZA> come back with feedback and modify it until we get this to a functional level, hopefully by then we will be funded and we should start to market it to our selected spots where demand is high or adoption could be faster.
<JZA> this will provide the resources to market it better to other areas and build the testing network.
<el56> The variance in actual testing method -- some could use Ingots, some could have instructors watch over students shoulders, some could automate a simulation -- is another reason why psychometrics would be impossible to apply here.
<jimby> so, i guess you are not that concerned with having the exam psychometically validated/approved ?
<el56> It'd be really nice, but would not really make a difference to the market this is targeting. Word-processors skills don't exactly merit a high stakes exam.
<JZA> I think it should be used when best needed. Like el56 said, is good for filling in multiple answers forms. 
<el56> There will be opportunities -- such as with higher level admin, template making etc) in which a form-based exam (which *can* be validated) would be appropriate.
<JZA> So if an organization that have this type of testing, should be encouraged to. But not all of them.
<JZA> this is what we have so far, but we are open to more opinions and proposals. So please let us know if you feel we should be paying more attention to something in particular.
<el56> There is quite the distinction (IMO) between desktop skills (WP, spreadsheet, printing) and admin skills. When you have one admin per 100 (or more) users, the admin is more business critical. So (the assumption goes) the desktop cert is not as high stakes and doesn't require the same level of validation.
<dlavigne> JZA: we can only tell you what we did, and watch how you do it :-)
<el56> Keeping the desktop exam low-stakes allows much lower cost (the target, I think, is €10 per student or less).
<el56> The intent is to have the expense low enough to encourage training centres to bundle the cert in with their training prices.
<jimby> el56: agreed on desktop/admin distinction.  however, there may be some fragmentation in your approach if these testing organizations all do their testing in completely different ways
<el56> jimby: I agree wrt fragmentation. AT the end of the day, the testers have to certify that each student has been tested and knows the objectives.
<jimby> el56: expense- this is a key topic.  as you know we've tried to keep our certification very affordable (75USD), and we've been successful at that
<el56> jimby: agreed. but the numbers and markets aren't the same. The OOo cert can't wait to be done at specific events. And they need to be done in much bigger numbers than admin certs to be useful.
<jimby> one thing we've done is to fund/promote  our cert with DVD sales.  the DVD contains the objectives, additional study information, and more recently a complete virtualized environment to use for hands-on
<JZA> jimby: that's a good idea. 
<el56> how much of the content of the DVD is not freely available elsewhere?
<dlavigne> 0%
<JZA> well having closed content is not something we want to encourage
<jimby> el56: i think your approach will come down to developing a solid network of testing organizations that all work towards the same end goal 
<JZA> jimby: exactly
<el56> Maybe I've been jaded though my LPI experience, but I have a very dim view of commercial training companies. I spent ages working with the New Horizons chain and it took months to wash it off later. If they don't have to pay for something they won't.
<jimby> if you can succeed at that- you'll have a good shot at overcoming the general problem of proctoring
<jimby> we've spent a lot of effort on the psychometric end of things and have just begun to develop a "network" of testing centers
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<jimby> another thing we've done is to leave the development of study materials, guides, exam-cram materials to others
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<jimby> (1:05:14 PM) jimby: another thing we've done is to leave the development of study materials, guides, exam-cram materials to others
<el56> In Europe and elsewhere we have to deal with ECDL/ICDL
<el56> The idea within OOo was to create an initial "canon" document that would provide a reference for the cert program. But third parties would be encouraged to create more novel, user friendly training
<jimby> we've published the exam objectives and made them available- sounds like you're doing the same thing
<el56> Having published objectives is an absolute must :-) That would be one of our few competitive advantages over the ECDL, which keeps that stuff highly proprietary.
<jimby> you will want to consider carefully whether you want to create your own study materials.  that can be perceived as conflict of interest
<JZA> well this is something we have been talking about. The thing is that we will probably go through a license scheme. Where we license the material provided by third parties. 
<jimby> we've put together some 'materials of interest' i.e. white papers, but we don't call them a study guide
<el56> A canonical reference document will (I hope) hardly be perceived as an end-user traing doc, but would indeed be useful by the writers of such docs.
<JZA> licesning a study guide, a guide book and so forth could be a way to get another income channel.
<JZA> at least thats has been the predominant idea.
<el56> There is already community-developed OOo documentation, though it doesn't match the cert objectives in any useful way. At leats, not yet.
<jimby> that (licensing)  sounds reasonable
<jimby> from our experience it will also be a challenge to work with subject matter experts and non-disclosure agreements. 
<JZA> great I have nothing else to add
<el56> yes, but that's not really an issue given our flexible testing methodology.
<jimby> these are important, as you know.  you don't want to find your entire exam on www.brain.dump 
<JZA> and have another meeting, but we should be talking about this scenarios since we should take those things into account
<dlavigne> k, see you later this week JZA
<jimby> k, well sounds like a good start to the cert program
<dlavigne> Evan, you going to be at IT360?
<el56> It's hard to braindump an over-your-shoulder audit.
<jimby> i wish you all the best
<el56> Dru: wasn't planning to, but I might give Bruce a hand if he asks.
<dlavigne> k, might see you there then
<dlavigne> bye all
<el56> I will be in town.
<el56> bye.
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<jimby> k- bye
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<ggurley> bye all
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